


Round and Round the Garden, Like a Teddy-Bear

by OnniesGirl



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Ends well....I think, Gen, Good luck my heart hurts after writing this, M/M, fluff?, trigger warning if you are still mourning a loved one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 05:26:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7832128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnniesGirl/pseuds/OnniesGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do you know what happens to you, Mr. Holmes -  At the end of your stories?”  </p>
<p>or</p>
<p>My take on the third Holmes sibling before cannon comes to claim me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Round and Round the Garden, Like a Teddy-Bear

**Author's Note:**

> BEFORE YOU GO INTO FEELS-VILLE TAKE A SECOND 
> 
> This is my first work. Ever. I am a writing virgin and I just took THAT step. Welcome to the ride you didn't know you signed up for. 
> 
> That being said. Have no mercy. I'd rather have a constructive critical comment (if any, who knows) than some sugar coated tripe. (this is not aimed at those innocent cinnamon rolls who can only write in that sweet, gentle language. you are beautiful don't ever change)
> 
> ALSO: 
> 
> This work is done as a stream of consciousness. I am well aware that past/present tense is skewed at points. I seemed to understand it well reading over it, I hope it isn't too confusing. 
> 
> Now, let's take a breath and get into this world I somehow got out of my head. 
> 
> post note: 'you don't spell love, you feel it' is a quote from A. A. Milnes "Winnie the Pooh"

 

 

“Do you know what happens to you, Mr. Holmes?”

Holmes had been thinking. The space between the foot of the settee and his own feet seemed to be shrinking as his body coiled in on itself, toward the wall and further into the cushions - _the way a star collapses just before it self-destructs-_ Holmes’ mind supplied most unhelpfully.

There was a sound inside and around the small Day Room he and his ‘guest’ were sitting in. A dull roar. Something mechanical that was once alive but was now slowly dying and echoing out in the late afternoon sunlight.

_Rolls-Royce BR725 A1-12 model. Duel engine. Only used in private jet G650 distributed by Gulfstream Aerospace. Meant for long distance travel…surprisingly comfortable seats._

There wasn’t any reason Holmes should know these facts. They filtered through his mind regardless and were [DELETED] as quickly as they came.

The voice registers on a level that is instinctual. It belongs to a woman of undiscernible age and background. An echo just the same; filling him with nostalgia but in a way more familiar than an engine, more _familial._ He doesn’t want to turn around.

“Do you know what happens to you, Mr. Holmes - 

He doesn’t want to turn around.

                                                                                  -At the end of your stories?”

_Don’t listen. Drift off. Focus on the wallpaper._ There is nothing he can gain by knowing one of the possible hundreds of ways his story could ‘end’. In another time, another him is laying on a surprisingly comfortable aeroplane seat letting their body fade out like a star. Holmes didn’t want to think about laying at the mercy of a gun or a poison…or a needle, when he would rather be on one more case with his ~~John~~ Watson.

 “Vous devez arrêter cette” (You need to stop this)

The woman without a name or face says

“VOUS NE FAITES PAS DITES-MOI CE QUE JE PEUX OU NE PEUX PAS FAIRE!” (YOU DON’T GET TO TELL ME WHAT I CAN OR CAN’T DO!)

The words and actions flow out of Holmes like condensation down the glass he used to drink out of on summer days far away from _here_. They happen like a memory that’s stuck on repeat and he can’t press play. One moment Holmes was at the wall, the next he is turned around, snarling with childish venom.

And the world stops

 

A young woman with curly red hair and a patient, sad smile is sitting in ‘the clients chair’. Her cheekbones jut out slightly from the roundness of her face. They contrast well with the indicative slant of her nose. Her eyes are not blue or green or grey. They are the same eyes that Holmes himself had studied in the mirror on a daily basis.

A Brittany hound with a worn neckerchief is curled at her master’s feet. She startles awake and lets out a small whine in lieu of the disturbance.

She is as beautiful as the day he lost her. They both are.

“Are you just going to stand there or do you finally feel like **focus** ing on the issue at hand, Sherlock?”

 

 

In a more constructed universe, Sherlock would have all the time in the world. Enough time to reminisce on the nibbled building blocks that had been hers, then Mycroft’s, then his; and the Christmas ~~they~~ he found Redbeard in a box under the tree. Playing pirates in Mum’s foxgloves, even under the threat that “Once more and you won’t get a single dessert for a month” (at least one of her children stayed out of the garden). The time Mycroft thought if he took all his stuffed animals into the woods that they would come to life, because his big sister made the comment that he looked like Christopher Robin.

In his mind, Sherlock and Holmes were merging together; observing, categorizing, remembering.

Pendant, well worn, engraved “Cheryn _”. A present to help ease the jealousy mum and da thought might occur with a new baby. Mine is in a morocco case hidden in the closet. Mycroft said once that he lost his. I know he keeps it in a mother of pearl box with your real pendant and a lock of hair he cut at the funeral. I know he wants to know where mine is. You were 11 when I was born and Mycroft was still 6 but very close to 7._

Scar on right cheek, required 3, no, 4 stitches. _You were 17, I was 6, and Mycroft was 13. We snuck out to see ‘Treasure Island’ at the drive-in movie theatre Mummy said was full of “riff-raff”, which became my favourite word for years. I cut you with the plastic sword that came with the popcorn and Mycroft gave you stitches in the guest bathroom._

Line of lighter skin on ring finger. Lack of mourning clothes. Defiant stance. Widowed from a loveless marriage. _Mummy and Papa were ecstatic when you married because your name became Cheryn Ford and it sounded like the name of one of our ancestors they wanted to honour but didn’t feel comfortable naming outright, even with their love of odd names. You were 21 years old, I was 10, and Mycroft was 17. I laid the flowers. Mycroft held the rings…_

Your name was Cheryn.

I was 10 years, 4 months, and 11 days old when I snuck out with Redbeard to investigate why you hadn’t called or picked up the phone in two days. I was going to ‘steal’ you away and take you to the beach like Captain Nemo. Redbeard heard you scream before I did and I found both of you with her lead still in my hand. The police never found out who did it. No one wanted to believe it was Judge Ford’s son. Nobody listened to the evidence and testimony presented by a child 10 years, 6 months, and 2 days old.

I turned 11 and threw up my birthday dinner because I found out my lemon cake with whipped cream and five strawberries had never been ‘the special of the day’ at the grocers. I turned 17 strung out on whatever I could get my hands on and almost burned the Snuff House down lighting 28 candles jammed in a second rate grocers Sheppard’s Pie that had been the special of the day.  I forgot you and found you in this universe I made in a fever dream. In a better world I would have never lost you.

 

 

There is a place inside Sherlock that is open again but he doesn’t even register it’s there. Right now he’s standing in front of the outlines of a life he could have had and the only desire he has is to touch them.

“You’re not real. I can’t pretend you are, either of you.”

Sherlock counts his blessings that they’re still whole and untainted before him. If they turn to blood and odd angles the other him may forgo waiting on the drugs and resort to _other_ means.  

“Do I need to be real to matter?”

“You’ve always mattered”

“We could talk in circles for an age, Sherlock. Right now I need you to listen.”

“Did you know I started categorizing scents because I forgot yours?”

That shouldn’t have come out. A look crosses over Cheryn’s face. It’s only a second before it’s gone and replaced with the stone visage that him and Mycroft perfected over the years.

“Beloved, we don’t have much time left, so I need you to listen to me. It’s important that you focus on what I say”

“I don’t want to know how my stories end. I don’t like endings. I was waiting for Watson to help continue our adventures but I got **you**.”

Redbeard got up from her place and came over to Holmes. Lavender shampoo masking dog sweat drifted over the two of them. She seems so very real.

“The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson do not end in an adventure.”

A pain stabbed through Holmes’ chest, whether from the newfound knowledge or his other self’s state was indiscernible.

“Holmes does not die at the barrel of a gun or an overdose. The stories do not end with a case”

“Well then. DO enlighten me, Sister Mine. I think we both know I don’t have time for dramatics”

“Well thank God you’re above that.” There’s a smile in her voice.

 

“He grows old, Sherlock”

 

If Holmes’ mind was truly a machine, it would have been sputtering.

“He what?” Sherlock spoke out slowly, as though he was still catching up, needing to hear the confirmation even as the words reverberated with perfect clarity.  

“He grows old. There’s a cottage in Sussex Downs by some farmland and the sea. He and Watson retire there after the strain of cases starts to wear on them. Holmes keeps bees and Watson writes up cases from the notes he took over the years. Every so often a case comes up that is just interesting enough to investigate but not strenuous enough to be dangerous.”

Sherlock is crying.

“I grow old”

“Well, you won’t if you stay here much longer” Cheryn was saying, but her voice was already starting to fade out.

“Tell Mycroft that what he’s looking for is in the box in the attic labelled ‘to charity’. Also tell him ‘You don’t spell Love, you feel it.’ He’ll know. I love you and miss you always”

Sherlock doesn’t know what to do with the information. Everything is happening too fast and he suddenly feels very out of his depth.

Cheryn walked up to the man who was not her brother and reached for the part of him that was.

“Don’t forget this time’’

Lemon grass. Old books with leather covers. Black tea. Something else that had no other name besides –

 

“SHERLOCK!”

 

Sherlock jolted to consciousness. John was shaking him to the point of whiplash.

“William Sherlock Scott Holmes if you don’t wake up I swear-“

“Hello John” Sherlock smiled. There was scent that he didn’t recognize right away but categorized out of habit. John was beautiful. He was always beautiful. Now he is beautiful is a way that makes Sherlock feel as light as the sun streaming in through the plane window.

Mycroft looks haggard. There doesn’t seem like any amount of personal therapy is going to alleviate _this_ incident anytime soon. He’s just staring. Sherlock brings his attention back to John who has resumed talking.

“Are you alright? We need to get you stable before you crash again.” _My John. Ever proving his illuminance or lack-there-of_  

“Yes. No. I wasn’t, but now I am. I was just having a very nice discussion with someone. They helped me realize there was still hope for me.”

“Whom.” Mycroft scoffed

Sherlock was silent for a moment, thinking about how to explain.

“You don’t spell Love, you feel it.”

For a moment if really does seem like the government official is going to lose whatever contents he had managed to get down that morning. 

“She said the thing you’re looking for is in the attic; in a box labelled ‘to charity’”

John had seen many instances where ~~patients~~ people came back from the brink of death and spoke of meeting passed loved ones. There was a part of him that wanted to know- know who this person was and why they elicited such a response between the two but he remained silent and determined to wait until he was told these things. He knew he would be told these things.

 

Epilogue

 

The wedding bells tolling out of Saint Bartholomew’s Church had never sounded more beautiful than they do, in this moment.

Mr. and Mr. Watson-Holmes were off on another adventure. It was one that had really started with “Afghanistan or Iraq?”.

“This ring is beautiful, Sherlock”. John says and the words don’t register for a moment, so enamored is the detective with trying to capture every detail of the way the sun is outlining and reflecting off of _his husband’s_ eyes.

“It was my sisters. Mycroft gave it to me shortly after that whole ordeal 2 years back. Apparently he'd been looking for it for years, but suddenly thought I might have better use for it instead”. Sherlock says.

"Huh, wonder why." John replies with a grin he was trying to conceal out a pure cheekiness, Sherlock reasons. 

Passing by the on lookers and well-wishers is bittersweet knowing that there is one very special guest absent from all this joy. Sherlock and John walk with confidence and conviction anyway, and in the midst of all this data, just as the line of people begins to thin, Sherlock closes his eyes and catches a whiff of something that reminds him of Home. Beyond the smell of uncooked rice and cut tree limbs, is lemon grass, old books with leather covers, black tea, and something else that has no other name besides –

Cheryn

If a little lavender gets mixed in too, all the better.


End file.
